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Curator's Circle Lecture: The Iron Powder: The Metamorphosis of Steel in Video Installations & Other Artworks

Curator's Circle Lecture: The Iron Powder: The Metamorphosis of Steel in Video Installations & Other Artworks

Speaker Kim Jongku

Thursday, February 13, 2014 - 7:00pm – 8:00pm

Hamilton Building - Lower Level

Free admission, reservations required.

In his artwork, Kim Jongku crosses various media and does not center on a particular material. He uses black, steel powder—the result of an industrial grinding process—and “writes” calligraphic inscriptions on the floor of a pristine, white environment, as if the iron powder were Chinese ink. Then, using closed-circuit cameras positioned on the floor, Kim projects his constructed vista onto a screen to evoke traditional Korean ink-and-brush painting. His video installations display a horizontally unfolded landscape that opens up a new place of possibility, hope, and coexistence. In this space, the viewer’s shoes are projected onto the screen and appear to dwarf a mountain, allowing the person to escape from day-to-day limitations and to experience peaceful and free spirituality. The metamorphosis of steel is connected with the artist’s criticism of today’s materialistic civilization. Kim transforms a mass of steel into powder and then into a horizontal landscape to visualize his aspirations of bringing the vertical system of contemporary society back to an unbiased horizontal system.